


cursing the cosmos

by 5sexualhomos



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bakery and Coffee Shop, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-10-30 14:42:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10878933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5sexualhomos/pseuds/5sexualhomos
Summary: In a world where people have timers counting down to when they meet their soulmate, finding love is easy. Harry meets Louis in a coffee shop one day. They slowly fall in love, the only thing holding them back is that they aren't soulmates.





	cursing the cosmos

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this piece for my creative writing class because I'm an absolute hoe for soulmate AUs so thats why i have three of them and want to write even more tbh. I did change the names for the assignment and Im pretty sure that i got all of them changed but if not i do apologize.
> 
> ENJOY!!!!!

Harry is woken up suddenly by “20 Dollar Nose Bleed” by Fall Out Boy going off by his head. He desperately wants to hit the snooze button once more, and just stay in bed for a few more hours because it’s Sunday and he doesn’t actually have to be anywhere. But he dutifully gets up for his daily morning run. He skipped yesterday, and knows if he skips another he’ll be just be disappointed in himself. He gets ready without thinking, putting on the first clothes his hands touch, and rushing out the door. He shivers as he steps into the brisk October air. The streets are covered in shadow, the sun still making its way into the sky. He’s always preferred running early, there aren’t as many groups of elderly power walkers or mothers pushing strollers. He feels like he can actually breathe for once in the perpetually congested streets of London. Harry checks the glowing green timer embedded on his wrist.

179:01:13:22

He looks left and then right before starting out, and decides to go in a different direction than usual. People are just starting to make their way out into the world. Mostly business people dressed in suits, talking hurriedly into their phones, crazy enough to work on a Sunday. As Harry continues his way through the winding city streets, and as the sun gets higher in the sky, people slowly begin to trickle out into the world. He sees mothers holding their child's hand on the way to church, and men and women who look bedraggled, most likely wearing the same clothes as the night before. But he doesn’t focus on these people, he tries to keep his mind as clear as possible on his runs. However, the multitude of couples he sees walking down the streets hand in hand come to the forefront of his mind. He sees couples of all ages and sexualities. He feels his heart clench as he sees two young women kiss, their timers glowing blue on their wrists. 

The timers count down to when a person meets their soulmate. Almost a hundred years ago a company called, LoveRight claimed they had an algorithm to find a person’s soulmate. All a person had to do was go to one of their facilities and get a timer embedded on their wrist. At the time it was a radical idea, but now LoveRight is a global company and one of the most successful businesses in the world. Not to mention most of the population has one of their timers. They aren’t mandatory, and they can be taken out at any time. A person can get one as early as fifteen with their parents permission. Some families are wild about the timer system, and get their children timers the day they turn fifteen. Others are more relaxed about it, letting their children decide on their own time if they want one or not. 

Harry falls into the latter category. His mother, Anne didn’t get her timer until she was in her thirties. Before that she met Harry’s father. They were happy together, it wasn’t a perfect relationship, but they cared about each other deeply. His father had a timer, he got it on his fifteenth birthday, but even ten years later it didn’t display any numbers; meaning his soulmate didn’t have a timer yet. He didn’t want to have it removed, his parents were the old fashioned kind of people. And raised him to believe in the system, and old habits die hard. But his father had promised not to leave them even if he would eventually meet his soulmate. 

They were an imperfect little family. Sometimes when they would walk down the street together, older people would scoff and whisper behind their hands to their friends. Relationships with people who aren’t your soulmate aren’t forbidden, especially since it is a choice to get a timer. But the older generation who were around when it first started believe in the purity of the system and don’t understand why people would date someone who wasn’t their soulmate.

When Harry was seven years old his father met his soulmate. For six months, he resisted the bond they seemed to have, but he finally accepted it. He came into Harry’s room one night and explained it to him. He went on about how he still loved Harry and his mother, and that would never change. Just that he felt complete with this newer woman. Harry had met this new woman a few times, he didn’t like her as much as his own mum, but even at seven he could see how much she cared for his dad and vice versa. And when his mum eventually got a timer and met her soulmate years and years later, Harry had never seen her smile so brighter then we she was with him. 

Despite how happy both his parents were with their respective soulmates, they never forced Harry to get a timer. They felt that he should still have a choice, because maybe one day he would meet someone that turned his world upside down in the best kind of way, and that person may or may not be his soulmate. Harry decided on his own that he didn’t really need one, that he would be fine on his own with finding his own person. 

He finally caved when he was twenty. All of his university friends had one and he was admittedly jealous of them comparing them. They were much sleeker than the ones his parents have. It only protrudes a couple of centimeters above the skin, it’s long enough to cover the whole wrist, but is only a quarter of an inch wide. He was walking down the street one day and saw a huge ad for LoveRight. It showed two men staring lovingly into each other's eyes, the caption underneath read. “Find THE ONE today!!” He walked into the location, paid the twenty pound fee, and less than five minutes later he walked out of the store with a timer in his wrist, telling him he would meet his soulmate five years and some odd days in the future. 

Harry quickly finishes up his loop outside a branch of his favorite coffee shop and looks at his timer again as he catches his breath.

179:00:11:36 

He steps inside and inhales deeply, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and pastries filling his senses. It reminds him of his school days when he worked in a bakery after school. He immediately feels calmer, he’s not paying attention to where he’s going and accidentally bumps into someone on their way out.

“Fuck!” the man yells. There is a large brown stain on his previously spotless t-shirt. “Watch where you’re going mate!” 

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” Harry replies. “I can get you a new coffee, if you’d like.” 

The smaller man looks at his wrist out of habit. Harry quickly sees the numbers on his timer are red, and not moving. The man shakes his head as if he’s trying to clear it. Harry feels him looking him up and down, taking in his long legs in booty shorts, muscular arms and slightly sweaty hair pulled back into a bun. 

“It seems like the least you could do,” he replies with a small smile. 

“I suppose it is. Do you have to be somewhere else soon?” 

“No. I’m Louis by the way.” Louis puts his hand out for Harry to shake. Harry takes it. 

“I’m Harry. Let’s get you that coffee. And maybe I can buy you a new shirt as well.”

“Such a gentleman.” 

They get in line and make small talk at first, but Louis doesn’t seem hesitant to share as much personal information as possible with a complete stranger. But Harry doesn’t mind, he’s totally enthralled by Louis’ vibrant personality. He talks with his hands, moving them about wildly as he tells stories, nearly hitting a few customers in the face. And his cerulean eyes sparkle as he talks about the antics of his eight year old students, as if they were his own children. Harry talks about himself as well, and Louis seems just as interested in Harry’s stories of being an editor at a publishing house, though they are much less exciting than Louis’ own in Harry’s mind. He doesn’t seem to be bothered by Harry’s slow voice and how he tends to ramble like most people do. They receive their drinks, and sit down at a free table. They continue to talk as if they’ve known each other for a lifetime rather than only fifteen minutes. Harry glances at the clock behind the counter for the first time since sitting down and realizes that an entire hour has passed without him even noticing. 

“You know we’ve been here for an hour?” 

“It hasn’t been that long has it?” Louis turns around to look at the clock as well. “Damn. I haven’t kept you from anything important have I?”

“Just a date with Netflix.”

“Well that seems very important. I have about thirty essays to mark today and tomorrow.”

“Eight year olds write essays now? Very impressive,” Harry says as he takes a sip of his coffee and raises one eyebrow.

Louis throws his head back and laughs. Harry can't help but admire the line of his jaw. “I suppose ‘essay’ is a bit of a misnomer. I had them write a paragraph about their families.”

“That seems much more appropriate. But, how bad can they be?”

“It’s deciphering the handwriting that's the hard bit.”

“Ah, well I shouldn’t keep you any longer then.”

“Probably not.” Neither of them move to get up, they just stare at each other, not wanting to leave the just yet. 

“Could I... uh get your number?” Harry asks. “I do owe you a new shirt, after all.”

“Of course. I have to hold you to your promise,” Louis replies with a dopey grin. When Harry gets home, he puts an old watch on his wrist to cover up his timer. 

Harry and Louis fall into an easy friendship. They seem to text each other constantly throughout the day, and send Snapchats back and forth of the most inane things, like what they have for breakfast or their shoes. They meet at the coffee shop every Saturday, although much later than that first day they met. Harry quickly found out that Louis is not normally an early riser, and prefers to sleep until noon on weekends. He invites Louis to join him for his daily run more than once, but Louis refuses to exert so much energy before having a drop of caffeine. 

On paper, they shouldn’t work, they seem to be opposites, but Harry feels happier than he has in years with his new friend. They’ve known each other for a little over a month when Harry finally asks Louis about his frozen timer. They’re at Louis’ apartment, in the middle of a Harry Potter marathon. Harry had just made a joke about Dumbledore screaming at Harry for putting his name in the Goblet of Fire that had both of them in stitches.

“Can ask you something?” Harry says from his end of the couch.

“Sure,” Louis says, still laughing.

“What happened to your soulmate?” 

Louis falls silent. 

“If you don’t want to talk about it that’s fine,” Harry reassures him. “I just notice you checking your wrist like it’s still counting down. And I’m just curious. Forget I said anything about it.”

“No, it’s okay. I just don’t really talk about it that much.”

“What happened?”

“I woke up one day and it was like this.” Louis pulls up the sleeve of his shirt to show Harry. It’s red and stuck at 26:57:48:03 “It happened about six months ago. If they were alive then we’d be together right now. I guess it’s not really LoveRight’s fault. They just make technology that can tell you precisely when meet your soulmate. They can’t predict if someone is going to die. Not like I’ve had my timer for twelve years or anything,” Louis explains bitterly. 

“So you're a pretty big believer then?” Harry asks.

“Hard not to be when your parents met when they were sixteen, and are still together. I think they were more disappointed about it than me. Even when I’m the one who has to stare at it everyday.”

“So why don’t you get it removed?” 

“I don’t know... I guess, I’m hoping that one day it’ll start to move again. It’s stupid I know,” Louis says dismissively.

“It’s not stupid. And I’m sorry that happened.”

“It's not your fault. Something in the cosmos fucked up.” Louis shrugs. “What about your timer?” 

Harry’s hand immediately goes to cover his wrist, forgetting the clunky watch that hides his timer. “I just don't like to think about it that much. It's not that important.” Harry shrugs his shoulders casually. It’s not a total lie, ever since he met Louis he doesn’t really care about his soulmate anymore.

“But you have one,” Louis states. “I saw it the day we met.”

“I just...I don’t like to think about it.”

“How long do you have?” Louis asks persistently.

“I honestly don’t know anymore, I haven’t taken the watch off since I met you.” Harry says sheepishly. 

“You need to,” Louis says. 

“But what if I don’t want to meet them anymore?” Harry asks seriously. 

Silence hangs in the air for a few minutes, the movie completely forgotten in the background. 

“I need to know how much time we have left of whatever this relationship is, Haz. I like you, like a lot, but I don’t know if I can stand to lose you,” Louis replies softly. 

Harry doesn’t think as he takes of the watch, just does it. As much as he wants to live in denial about his soulmate, he knows deep down that he could be with Louis for a long time. And he might not personally care about it anymore, but Louis does. He closes his eyes for just a second before holding out his arm for both of them to see. It reads:

121:15:27:09

It’s not as if he had totally lost track of how much time he had left. There was always a little voice in his head reminding him of just how much he had left, but seeing it plain as day made something twist in his gut. He and Louis have a little over three months.

“Okay,” Louis says shakily. “Three months. That’s... not a lot of time. I don’t know if...”

“Don’t say anything please. Let’s talk about it later okay?” Harry pleads.

“Later.” Louis nods. Harry moves closer to Louis, and Louis rests his head on Harry’s shoulder as they continue to watch the movie.

103:14:26:58

After the discussion on the couch something in their friendship shifts. It’s not immediate, but eventually Harry’s clothes accumulate in Louis’ apartment, as he finds himself spending the night more often than not. They go out to dinner together and play footsie under the table like a couple of middle schoolers. Harry feels complete with Louis, their personalities are so different, but it doesn’t matter. There’s no awkwardness between them, like they were meant to be together. But the timer embedded in Harry’s skin is a constant reminder that they aren’t actually fated to live happily ever after; that there will be some sort of kink down the road. They’re at dinner one night when it comes up again. There’s a billboard for LoveRight across the street from the restaurant. 

“I can easily get it taken out,” Harry insists. “I can go tomorrow.”

“But that isn’t fair to them, and you know it,” Louis hisses. Harry is sure he doesn’t want to cause a scene. Their conversations about the timer usually end with screaming and someone crying. 

“What about us?”

“You know how I feel about you, but...”

“Let’s just drop it okay,” Harry says. They’ve had this discussion so many times, and their arguments never change. Louis is coming from a place of selflessness, and actually caring about the feelings of this person he’s never met. He knows what it’s like to lose them, and doesn’t want to be the cause of the pain that person will feel. Harry knows he’s being selfish, but he knows that he wants to be with Louis for a long time, longer than what they have left. The only thing stopping him from getting his timer taken out is because of how strongly Louis feels about it.

89:07:26:34

Harry leaves his and Louis’ bed reluctantly for his daily run. A habit that he’s actually fallen out of for over a month now because of the boy who is lying on the other side of the mattress. He stares at Louis fondly as he continues to sleep peacefully. Harry gives him a quick kiss on the forehead before grabbing his phone and slipping out of the apartment. He doesn’t have a specific path in mind, so he just takes off down the street. There are hardly any people out on the chilly December morning, most people opting to sleep in. Usually Harry doesn’t mind the lack of people, but today he could really use a distraction. He and Louis got into another argument last night. They were happening more often now, and Harry hated it. He didn’t like feeling guilty for loving Louis, and for no longer wanting his timer. If him meeting his soulmate isn’t going to tear them apart then their fights about it just might. 

As soon as that thought crosses Harry's mind he stops running. He doesn’t want their relationship to end over something so stupid. And he knows Louis might not like him getting it removed, but he isn’t going to let that stop him.

He quickly grabs his phone from his pocket and googles the nearest LoveRight location. It’s only a few blocks away, but it doesn’t open for another hour. He decides to visit them as soon as they open, and finds the closest cafe, ordering a drink and waiting. It’s the slowest hour of his life. He can’t help but check his timer every few minutes. He knows this might be a stupid idea, and that he has no idea how Logan is going to react, but he doesn’t care. He wants to be with Louis. He chose to get the timer, and now he’s choosing to get it taken out. It’s simple in his mind. 

Five minutes before the store is set to open Harry leaves the cafe. He forces himself to walk, not wanting to seem like a crazy person. When he arrives the store is well lit, and people are moving around inside. He takes a deep breath before opening the door. 

“Hello! Welcome to LoveRight! How may I help you?” an overly cheerful man asks him. 

“I’d like to get my timer removed,” Harry states, walking up to the desk. The man’s smile falters for a little just a second. 

“Are you not satisfied with it?”

“No, I am. I just found the person I want to be with. And don’t need a piece of technology to tell me that.”

“Okay then,” the man replies in a slightly less cheerful tone. He grabs a paper from a drawer. “Here’s a form I need you to fill out and sign. It gives us permission to take it out and lets you know that this is a permanent option, and you cannot receive another timer.” Harry fills out the form without hesitation, and hands it over the man with a large smile. The man hands him another piece of paper.“If you’ll just go through that door on your left, and hand that to the person back there we’ll get you out of here in a jiffy.” 

“Thank you.” Harry walks through the door, and hands the paper to a blonde woman.

“Right this way, sir,” she says not looking at him. She leads him down a hallway to a small room that looks like what you would find at a dentist's office. “Please have a seat.” Harry sits in the chair, as the woman grabs an intimidating instrument. It’s a large claw, like the kind you find in arcade games. But the ends appear to be much more sharp. “You’ll feel a slight pinch, but other than that it should be fairly painless.”

Harry looks at the ceiling, unable to watch as the claw grabs onto the edges of the timer. Feeling it is bad enough, he braces himself for the extraction. The woman doesn’t warn him before a sharp pain shoots up his arm. He looks at his wrist. It’s bleeding slightly, but the timer is gone. A sense of relief washes over him. The woman puts a bandage around his wrist and tells him to keep it on for at least twelve hours. Harry leaves the store feeling like a weight has been lifted off his shoulder.

When Harry arrives at the flat, the smell of eggs and bacon is thick in the air. He was hoping Louis would still be asleep, so he would have time to plan out what he wanted to say. But that’s no longer an option, he decides to wing it. He walks towards the kitchen, and leans against the doorjamb. Louis is too busy at the stove to even notice him. Harry just stands there admiring him for a few seconds. Trying to prolong the conversation for as long as possible. 

“Hey, babe,” he says, walking towards Louis.

“Hey. How was your- What’s that?” Louis asks noticing the bandage right away.

“I made a stop at LoveRight this morning.” Harry replies sheepishly.

“We talked about this!” Louis puts down the spatula he’s holding.

“I know, I know.” Harry walks until he’s right in front of Louis. “But after our fight last night I realized that our arguments would tear us apart before I even got to meet my soulmate. And I just couldn’t bear it.” 

“You knew how I felt about this.” Louis mutters.

“Yes, And I totally understand if you want to be mad at me for the rest of eternity. So what, I decided to be a little selfish, because I really, really care about you. And I know the feeling is mutual. And I also know that you don’t want anyone else to feel cheated by this system, or whatever. But I don’t think you could take another heartbreak. You already lost your soulmate, babe. And I may not be them, but I don’t think I could have lived with myself, knowing I broke your heart. So I’ll leave if you want me to. But know that this wasn’t me being totally and completely selfish.”

Louis doesn’t say anything, just stares at him. Harry sighs and starts to turn away. 

“Where are you going? Louis asks.

“Just leaving."

“You idiot.” Louis grabs Harry’s face with both hands and kisses him deeply. He pulls away. “You’re right I was mad, and ready to yell at you but that speech...wow. You’re right though I was putting someone I don’t even know ahead of myself. I was just kind of preparing myself for the pain of losing you. And I don’t know why I would be so stupid, when I have the most beautiful man in front of me telling me he loves me.”

“So what now?” Harry asks. “We ride off into the sunset?”

“Yes. but first. We should go get some breakfast. Because everything is burnt now. And then after we’re gonna go to LoveRight so I can get my timer taken out too.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. You're it for me babe.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!!


End file.
